New ThinkPad Keyboards from a Blind User's Perspective

Hi all,
I’m posting this on Lenovo community as well as the ThinkPad board to generate maximum visibility, so apologies in advance for double posting.
Generally a lurker on these forums, I thought that I should speak out because this is important to people like me.
I’m a blind ThinkPad user from the time of IBM. Blind PC/ Mac users rely on screen readers to operate. A screen reader is a piece of software that reads out loud textual and tagged graphical elements present on the screen. Due to certain technological barriers, keyboards have been the primary input device for blind screen reader users instead of a mouse. In fact that is why companies like Microsoft, Apple, and Google have built-in keyboard shortcuts in the form of key combinations and key sequences in their respective apps. Accessibility is a big issue when it comes to purchasing/ adopting software by governments in some countries. There is a good reason for that too. I can use Excel, R, Python, PowerPoint, and other apps just as well as the next person, but I’m heavily discriminated against in my field.
The point of all this rambling is that keyboards are essential for productive blind people, which is why I loved ThinkPad’s.
As I started checking out ThinkPad reviews for my next upgrade, I was stunned to discover that some keys that are quite important to me are missing in the newer keyboards. CapsLock, Insert, and Escape are all used by screen readers to provide navigational and positional information. Thanks to these boards at least I know that the function keys can be turned on without messing in BIOS, since that’s not accessible. I can’t edit a single cell in Excel without F2!
Another point to note is that I can live with the new keyboard design since I have no other option but to adapt, so that’s not a big problem. But I and other blind workers like me can’t live without all the keys that a traditional keyboard has.
I was contemplating either the T440S or the W540, but unfortunately if the axing of keys that Lenovo considers irrelevant continues, I’ll have to start looking elsewhere.
If someone from one of the government/ educational department is reading this, you better start looking for another brand for bulk buying if you have an “equal opportunity” policy. Lenovo apparently doesn’t care to find out how its ThinkPads are being used by a diverse set of people.

I see that option on the menu and there's a few addresses under there, but not every one of them. Also, I tried to import the old email and that comes in as a separate mailbox ("Import-n") but that doesn't yield any new addresses in the previous recipients collection.
Just saw the recent comment about the SQLite DB which uses the phrase "not easily" as opposed to "impossible." I'm not saying I'm a SQL ninja, but I know my way around DBs. Just curious if there are some pointers you can provide or is really a rathole I should stay out of?
thanks!
Message was edited by: Lee Sachs

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This is one way you can do that. The bad side of your implementation is that the planning function is called 6 times. It would be better to copy the coding of the planning function and modify it in such a way that you can do all of the steps in one go. If the performance is all right I would still leave it the way it is as then you do not have to change to coding.
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Message was edited by: Pismo 900
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Message was edited by: Pismo 900 (second edit)
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New ThinkPad Keyboards from a Blind User's Perspective

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